


He Woke to Fire

by AnglophilicSins



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Altaïr dies instead of Kadar, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Buried Alive, Gen, Gratuitous italics, Gratuitous mentions of Altaïr's eye colour, Grieving, Heavy Angst, Kadar becomes badass, Kadar has a weak stomach, Kadar-centric, M/M, Malik is lost, Nightmares, Not Beta Read, SO MUCH Vomit, Unrequited Love, because he ded, out of neccessity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2018-09-01 17:19:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8632027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnglophilicSins/pseuds/AnglophilicSins
Summary: In another world, Malik would return one-armed and brotherless to Masyaf and meet Altaïr who was alive and whole and he would curse him with all his being. He would become the Rafiq of Jerusalem and Altaïr - disgraced - would journey to reclaim his glory. And Altaïr-and-Malik would rise above the lies and half-truths to become the Grand Master-and-Dai and rule their Order with wisdom and compassion.But this is not that world.





	1. It Went Down in Ice

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Immovable, unbreakable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685119) by [Cards_Slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-divergent AU fic in which Altaïr dies at Solomon’s Temple instead of Kadar. Because I have been binge-reading fics in which Altaïr suffers and I loved it so much especially when the other characters around react to his suffering. Also I threw in some Maltaïr because I will go down with this ship.
> 
> I am a cruel, cruel creature.
> 
> The pacing of this is also all over the place because I am writing off the seat of my pants in disjointed spurts so forgive the weirdness.

Kadar Al-Sayf was the younger brother of Malik Al-Sayf. 

And that is the way he would be known for years, the way he would be remembered. 

Altaïr ibn La-Ahad was a man he admired, as many did. The youngest Master Assassin in recorded history, earning his title at the age of twenty-five. There were few who did not admire him. Even Malik Al-Sayf admired him, though his brother would have only bitter words for the other. 

Admiration in itself is not an act that yields any result. Kadar is in the bottom rungs of skill in his class, hanging around the edges of the training fields, watching with stars in his eyes as Altaïr ibn La-Ahad would again and again brutally defeat his Assassin Brothers in rounds upon rounds of sparring. Soon his opponents would back away, wary, afraid. At the end of it all Rauf the Kind would cheerfully (always cheerful) announce the end of the spars, dismiss Altaïr, and put the others back to practice.

“He is incredible,” Kadar would gush. But there would be no one agreeing, no one nodding, no one applauding.

No one liked Altaïr ibn La-Ahad. 

They feared his wrath. They respected his rank. They admired his skill. But no one liked Altaïr. 

“He’s sold his soul to a djinn,” a silly little legend goes, “it rose from the sea offering him power.” 

At the end of the day, Kadar Al-Sayf would walk away from the demonstration with the other boys of his age and rank, the other boys who also did not like Altaïr, and they would talk about djinns and souls and the devil. Admiration in itself yields no result; and Kadar has learnt nothing.

Among the boys (men) of his age, Malik Al-Sayf was second place (the first being Altaïr). He would be known and remembered as his namesake first, and as Kadar Al-Sayf’s elder brother second (if they remembered Kadar Al-Sayf at all). People admired Malik too, although he was twenty-six to Altaïr’s twenty-five and not a Master Assassin (yet). People _liked_ Malik too, gathered around him in the way that they parted and fled from Altaïr. 

Where Malik was fire, Altaïr was ice. Malik’s words were venom and acid and he was sharp and caustic and disagreeable, but Altaïr was silent and blunt and _soulless_. 

Sometimes Kadar would run from his lessons, and he with a few other boys would giggle as their instructors ran around to look for them (and pretended they couldn’t find them; an impromptu training in stealth). Sometimes Kadar would climb, higher than all the other boys (and that was the only skill he excelled at; climbing), into one of many high rafters and not look down. 

So he would look up, look across. And higher, higher than he could ever reach, was a tall narrow tower at the edge of the fortress. It had a single tiny room, barely large enough for two men to stand abreast. On either side, two tall arches. 

And Altaïr would be there, back to one arch, facing out the other. Kadar would watch Altaïr watch the world beyond the tower, wondering what it was he saw. 

Did he watch the skies? Beyond its boundlessness see his namesakes soar through the clouds buoyed by updrafts of dusty wind? Did he feel as he looked there in that high narrow room: like a caged bird, longing to fly free? 

Or did he watch the sea? The dark and deep waters of which he was so infamously averse to, that had nearly claimed his life in childhood? Did the greatest Assassin who dutifully brought death to so many look into the sea and see his own?

(And then he thought of djinns living beneath the waves and wondered if Altaïr was watching his own powerlessness, his own _soul_.)  

And as he clung, like a worm, to the rafter, he would hear Malik’s sharp bark from miles below, shooing him back to classes. He would squirm backwards and stumble-fall awkwardly down through each ledge till he reached the ground (he could climb without difficulty, coming back down was always another set of problems altogether), only to be boxed in the ears by his impatient elder brother and sent scurrying back to his instructors, Malik’s stern glare burning the robes off his back. 

Capable, dutiful, fierce Malik Al-Sayf’s silly, bumbling, weak little brother. That was how Kadar Al-Sayf was known for years, how he would be remembered.

Solomon’s Temple was to be a hallmark mission for Journeyman Assassin Kadar. His first major mission, one led by Master Assassin Altaïr ibn La-Ahad with assistance from High Assassin Malik Al-Sayf. It was an _honour_ to be even allowed to _follow_ the two greatest Assassins of their generation on a mission of such importance, especially so soon after his promotion from Novice. 

He and his brother scout the area without issue (and Malik’s voice nagging _be careful, be quiet_ over and over) and all Kadar wants to do is charge right in and snatch the Treasure away before even more guards have the chance to show up.

They return to the bureau in the evening to meet up with Altaïr, who waits and commands Malik with an imperious tone to tell him what they have found (oh and Malik _seethes_ ) then he simply nods and turns his back to them and the entire conversation. 

“The Order would be better off without all that pride he carries,” Malik grouses, a firm hand on Kadar’s back pushing him indoors to his own cot, “The _world_ would be better off.” Kadar goes to sleep that night with Malik’s voice ringing in his ears ‘ _his pride will lead us all to ruin._ ’  

His pride leads to ruin.

In another world, in another time, Altaïr’s suicidal rush towards Robert de Sablé would be watched with slack-jawed horror by Malik-and-Kadar and all of Robert’s knights. In another world, Altaïr would be thrown into a scaffold and barred from the room, the resulting crash jolting the knights into a flurry of murder. In another world, Malik would scream as Kadar was cut down, his movements turned frantic and enraged and careless and to that carelessness he would lose too much blood in his left arm.

In another world, Malik would return one-armed and brotherless to Masyaf and meet Altaïr who was alive and whole and he would curse him with all his being. He would become the Rafiq of Jerusalem and Altaïr - disgraced - would journey to reclaim his glory. And Altaïr-and-Malik would rise above the lies and half-truths to become the Grand Master-and-Dai and rule their Order with wisdom and compassion.

And Kadar Al-Sayf would be remembered in death as he was known in life: as Malik Al-Sayf’s naïve, incompetent little brother.

But this is not that world.

In the other world, Kadar’s attention would be riveted on the scene of Altaïr-and-Robert grappling, and he would not notice the falling sword of a knight on his right. In this world, the knight moves a fraction of a second too slow, and the firelight cast by the torches they bear glances off his sword as he swings it up, glinting into the edge of Kadar’s vision.

Kadar shouts in alarm, drawing his blade in time to block the blow. Malik-the-king-of-swords moves faster and with more grace: within the space of a breath his sword is unsheathed and has slain two knights near him.

Where Robert would have thrown Altaïr with all his strength directly through the scaffold and into the next room, the fight now distracts him, and he tosses Altaïr carelessly and at an angle. Altaïr flails through the air, and his long limbs catch on the wooden beams, which crash down onto him. There is a loud crack, and Altaïr barely suppresses his scream of agony.

Kadar does not remember most of the fight, he swings his sword till his arms are numb and then swings some more. The front and bottom of Malik’s long white robes are soaked red with the blood of the knights he has slain, and Kadar’s own grey robes are swiftly meeting a similar fate. The knights seem to be endless, pouring in like vermin through the walls and in the centre of it all is the giant Robert, and they are two against a million.

“This way!” Altaïr’s voice is steady and booming and like a beacon on the open sea it pulls Malik-and-Kadar in effortlessly. They run- _sprint_ through the opening that Altaïr is slumped against (and Kadar can see the bright naked white of Altaïr’s snapped shin bone slipping out through the thick, slippery, fleshy gore of his ruined leg and Kadar wonders _how did he even get across the room?_ )

And as he passes he sees Altaïr raise his hand out the corner of his eye and he feels a weight settle into one of his back pouches. He stops, means to turn to check what that was, and he sees he brother running back, his face is blanched almost white with terror.

“Altaïr hurry!” and he’s pulling pulling frantic at Altaïr’s arm like that would somehow un-break his leg and Altaïr is somehow starting to stand.

_“Go.”_

The wind is knocked out of Kadar as the body of his brother crashes against his. When they finally untangle themselves, Kadar looks to the room and sees Altaïr (sheet-white now where his mixed parentage made him merely _fair_ ) standing with his entire weight on his good leg, reaching up with his left hand, hidden blade extended, to a taut rope above...

The quiet in the tunnel after the noise of the crash of wooden scaffolding and stone is _deafening_ .

He doesn’t remember who gets up first, but they are both running now, away from the carnage, away from the Temple.  
  
They spend only long enough in the bureau to deposit the Treasure of Solomon with the old Rafiq (and that’s what the weight he’d felt was, that’s what Altaïr had _dragged_ himself across the room to give him), neither having the peace of mind to even eat. They sneak out like shadows when night falls and return to the Temple, armed with shovels and torches. Each brother picks an entrance - both collapsed - and begin digging.  

They have not spoken a word to each other since before the fight.

It is noon the next day when Kadar finally throws down his shovel. His arms burn from exertion, his belly is screaming with hunger, and his back has stiffened into a hunch. It has been twenty full hours since Altaïr collapsed his last hope for escape (with the last of his strength pushed Malik to safety whispering _“Go_ _”_ ) and Kadar has not been able to hear even the faintest whisper of wind through the cracks in the stone.  

Malik is harder to dissuade, and Kadar goes-and-returns with food and eats with a cold numbness in his heart as he watches Malik dig and dig and dig furiously for a few hours more. 

Twenty-eight hours.

Kadar shoves a small loaf of khubz into Malik’s mouth as he manhandles his brother’s exhausted body onto a stolen horse. They stop by the bureau to retrieve the Treasure, then begin the long ride back to Masyaf.

Al Mualim promotes Malik to the rank of Master Assassin (the rank previously held by Altaïr) and Malik is twenty-eight-not-twenty-five when he receives the promotion but he is still congratulated and hailed as a prodigy. Kadar himself is also promoted to the rank of Senior Assassin and the other boys of his class watch with awe and jealousy.

It is later when the cheers and festivities have died down and Al Mualim’s proud smile tingles like insects crawling over his skin that Malik comes to him and says (quietly, like a confession), “Altaïr is stronger than me, stronger than most of those knights, even bereft a leg.”

Then Kadar is climbing higher and higher than he ever has before, higher than even the rafter, staring up and across at the small room at the top of the tower, large enough for only two men abreast, an arch on either side. He stands in the space once occupied exclusively by the ghost-white robes of Altaïr and sees the endless sky above and the dark, impenetrable sea below and wonders if Altaïr somehow knew, always knew.

He thinks of souls and caged birds and wonders if it is painful to suffocate to death.  
  
Kadar is sent to root out a traitor from within Masyaf, and his brother rides to the bright noise of Damascus to kill an arms merchant. In his death throes the traitor renounces the Assassins (the Assassins that have, for _generations_ , protected the city he and his ancestors lived and thrived in) and Kadar almost _laughs_ when Al Mualim plunges the blade down the sorry man’s throat (bright naked white of the blade slipping out through the thick, slippery, fleshy gore of his ruined neck).

The blade is gifted to Malik upon his return. A blade of beauty and fine make, well-balanced and expertly crafted. The cross-guard mimics wings, the pommel is a silver eagle’s head. Worthy only of the Master Assassins. Malik accepts the gift without much more than a quiet thanks.

That night Malik-and-Kadar return to their small house in the city, and Kadar can’t find the energy to even prepare the simplest of dinners, and Malik has no appetite besides. Come morning, Kadar leaves next for Damascus, Malik for Acre.

But now it is night, and Malik throws down the new blade, the beautiful _gift_ , and kicks it so hard such that it skids across the room and its eagle-pommel is shunted underneath a stray cushion. He crashes to his knees and he screams as only his brother could scream.

The next morning, Kadar walks out to find Malik asleep where he grieved the night before, he picks up the blade and ties it to his waist. Malik never asks for the blade to be returned. Kadar never offers.  
  
Kadar’s target is a fat rich man disillusioned with the world and the war and he welcomes the blade of Kadar’s eagle-pommel sword with a laugh and open arms. Malik’s target is an old mad man who fancies himself a saviour as he tortures men to hysteria, who cries for the fate of _his_ _children_ as he gurgles and chokes on his blood.

Kadar doesn’t close his eyes when he lays down to sleep on the road. He stares up into the starlit sky and tries to find the brightest star in each constellation but when he looks at Aquila the only thing he sees is a left hand raised, blade extended to a taut rope. His cheeks are sticky when he wakes the next morning from a sleep he does not remember falling into.

When they return to Masyaf next, Malik surprises him when he says (with a short laugh brittle as glass), “I miss his stupid arrogance.”

And he surprises Al Mualim, when he says, “I want to go to Jerusalem.”

Al Mualim frowns like he’s confused why Malik would ever want to return to that wretched city. Then he’s promoting Kadar (again) and Kadar still hasn’t figured out how to react while Al Mualim continues with calling an Imam and suddenly a full-blown Muslim funeral is underway and it’s only a full hour later, surrounded by tears and tired platitudes, that Kadar realises that this funeral, despite the empty casket, is in Altaïr’s name.

But this funeral isn’t _for_ Altaïr, he realises, when he sees the tears on people that had watched Altaïr’s every step with bitterness and jealously, heard words of compassion and grief fall from tongues that spoke only spite to Altaïr in life. When he sees the surreptitious glances a dry-eyed Al Mualim keeps shooting Malik as he talks about “a brilliant man” and how he was “like a son to me”.

They feared his wrath. They respected his rank. They admired his skill. But no one liked Altaïr.

Malik’s voice is flat despite the tears gathering in his eyes when he says, “This is not right,” and Kadar thinks this is a most unusual thing to hear from his usually dutiful, pious brother, and he thinks about nights-and-mornings spent hearing Malik shooing him to prayers, of the complete absence of all food in their little house during the month of fasting.

“Altaïr’s faith was not Islam,” Malik says, “Altaïr would not have wanted this,” and now all Kadar thinks of is tireless digging _for hours_ and a thrown eagle-pommel sword and a broken _scream_ in the night and a fragile, cracking _I miss him_ and then he thinks _how long have you been in love?_

The farce of a funeral is not enough to dissuade Malik (could never have been enough), and he insists again on being allowed to return to Jerusalem. Al Mualim looks disappointed (like a father looking at his unruly child, and hasn’t he seen this look before, directed at another?) when he acquiesces, sending Malik to kill a slaver named Talal. Kadar is given leave, and he chooses to follow his brother.

Kadar Al-Sayf is worried.

The new revelation of his brother’s heart aside, Malik has been visibly sick with grief. He is prone to sudden stumbles, of moments of melancholy so overwhelming he does nothing but stare at the sky. He worries because he knows his brother has not been eating well, knows that his grip on his sword sags and his stance is loose and off-centre, knows that he wakes in the night crying and screaming _Altaïr hurry!_

When they reach Jerusalem, Kadar’s soft-round face is like flint as he presses a shovel and a bag of food and water into Malik’s chest saying, “Go find his body.” Malik is shocked and pliant under his (once sweet, once innocent) little brother’s rough hands and he lets himself be shoved back onto his horse and sent cantering off towards the Temple. Kadar breathes deep, refocuses himself, and hunts for Talal.

The Rafiq gives him a curious look when he sees Kadar-and-not-Malik come to claim a feather, but bids him luck and godspeed, shaking his head with the pain of an old man who has sent too many young men to die.

The Rafiq gives him a look of plain shock and confusion when Kadar returns alive-and-not-dead, a feather red with the blood of the foul (and who but the most foul could bind men and women into slavery and call it salvation?).

“You are Malik’s brother indeed,” the old Rafiq says when he gathers his wits about him.

“You are Altaïr’s admirer indeed,” the old Rafiq grouses when Kadar simply turns and leaves without a goodbye.

Admiration in itself is not an act that yields any result, but together with pain, Kadar has been forced to learn.

Kadar meets his elder brother at the thrice-cursed Temple later, bearing another bag of food and water. The entrance that Malik had been working on previously is clear of rubble now, and against the setting sun all Kadar sees is the inky blackness of the cavern. But from that darkness wafts the unmistakable stench of decay and days-old death, and Kadar picks his way gingerly through the thick black to the tiniest light from his brother’s flickering torch.

He kneels down, pulling his brother’s arm over his shoulder, and half-carries him out. He goes back in a second time, and when he next emerges there’s a small pyre already built, his brother quietly waiting.

They stand beside each other, watching in silence as the flames crackle and consume the lifeless body of Altaïr ibn La-Ahad.

On the road back to Masyaf Kadar loses his lunch twice to the road, and Malik’s dreams are plagued by a mouth torn open in a desperate gasp, fingers curled into claws and caked with dirt, golden eyes dull with death.

Malik’s tears are still wet on his face and Kadar commands-not-asks him to stay at home and get some rest when they arrive at Masyaf. When Kadar goes to meet Al Mualim (the Master, and Kadar twitches like a fly is buzzing about his head whispering _“I did not_ enslave _them, I offered them_ salvation _”_ ) he goes alone, and makes some excuse about a minor injury Malik had sustained on the journey.

His voice is warm like a father’s as he says, “Ah, send your brother my regards. He was always my favourite, after all.”

Kadar’s eyes narrow (and the fly is saying _“my children, what will become of my children?”_ ), “Wasn’t Altaïr your favourite?”

“Why yes,” Al Mualim says and it feels like an afterthought, as he stares into the _golden_ Treasure of Solomon (and Kadar can’t help but think, what had Altaïr dragged himself across the room _for_?) in his hands, “But Altaïr is dead now, and you and your brother are not.”  
  
Kadar returns home with two more contracts, one in Acre, the other in Jerusalem, and a mind filled with (desperate, gasping, dying) _gold_.

Guglielmo del Monferrato cries out for the people he leaves behind with his dying breath, the people whom he’s starved and left in poverty ( _“stockpiling resources, so they are not foolishly wasted before a time of need”_ ) and Kadar resists the urge to spit on his dying body just barely, held back by the need to escape right now and the frantic tolling of the city bells dogging his footsteps.

He hides in a rooftop garden and true fear paralyzes his screams better than any lessons could have when the heavy footfalls of steel boots thunder outside. When the bells stop tolling, Kadar sits still with his head between his knees and tries to remember how to breathe. He stands, slowly, shakily, trying to tell himself that Guglielmo’s assassination was no more difficult than the previous two , tries to tell himself _Altaïr wouldn’t be scared._

And then he sees crumbling walls and dying flames and sees his hands scratch and claw till they _bleed_ , feels the air become heavier and heavier in the too-small room and he’s surrounded by rank, rotting corpses and his voice is a harsh crackling ‘help me, somebody, _please_ ’ and golden eyes wide with panic and _fear_ and-

Kadar makes it two streets before his legs give out and he’s heaving in an alleyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s more to come but I feel I can just publish this first half first eyy
> 
> You may have noticed that some parts/lines resemble Cards_Slash's Immovable, Unbreakable. That's because I am obsessed with that fic and I have read and re-read it so many times it has become my new canon.


	2. It Lies In Wastes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *coughs* Yes, I am still alive. And a even a whole year later, so is this fic. Somehow.
> 
> I don't really have an excuse for why this is so late. Something about a massive existential crisis regarding the plot. There was a consideration of scrapping the entire first chapter too, but I ultimately decided to keep it.
> 
> You may also have noticed that the chapter 'limit' has increased from 2 to 4. This is related to the aforementioned plot crisis. I will also warn now that I haven't actually written the next two chapters, and that it might actually end up as 3, 5, or even 6 chapters. But I am pretty determined to see this fic to the end, so if you can bear with the wait and the uncertainty, you have my thanks.

_“I killed them because I could, because it was fun! Do you know what it feels like, to determine another man's fate? And did you see the way the people cheered? The way they feared me? I was like a God! You'd have done the same if you could. Such power!"_

Malik’s blade slides free from the man’s neck and he is running before the guards can react, only sparing a glance to confirm the release of the captured brother. He is hidden long before the bells begin to sound and he leans back, watches with nonchalance from the bench upon which he is seated as the guards race right by him and he wonders at his skill, his _power_ , and thinks _‘I am a Master Assassin’_.

The pride that thought brings rings hollow in his breast.

-

Kadar stands beside Malik, feathers delivered, and knows he looks as sickly as he feels.

The Master sends Malik away, crooning after him, then turns back to paw his hands through Kadar’s hair and over his shoulders.

“My boy, my boy.”

“I am well, sir,” Kadar replies, surprised at the steadiness in his voice, “merely tired.”

“Of course, of course.”

The old man smiles, and it’s as warm and soft as knives in his eyes.

“I am proud of your progress, my son. Soon we will free the holy land, and usher in a new era of peace.”

-

It is a book, written in de Sable’s hand, the thing that Malik wants to show him. “From the… the Temple.”

“What does it say, brother?” Kadar asks from where he is simmering stew over the fireplace.

Malik’s only answer is a dark scowl as he flips the book shut with a dull thump, running a hand down his face with a groan.

“It’s heavily coded. I don’t know. Codes and languages were never my strengths.” _But his_.

Kadar comes to the table and sets the bowls of stew before them, and together they break the bread and begin to eat their dinner, the dusty book sitting shut and silent between them.

“I’m sure between the two of us, we could figure something out.”

-

Acre is a city gripped in fear.

Kadar ducks his head and draws in his shoulders, his pale robes drawing whispers and glares even though they are not even the white ones of the Assassins. It has become too dangerous for the Brotherhood to operate as openly as they have in this city as of late, because of Sibrand’s frantic, mindless fear.

_“No. It cannot be. We must have missed something.”_

_“We’ve translated and re-read this letter ten times now, brother. What else could we have missed?”_

_“Well, we must have gotten something wrong somewhere! We will try again in the morning light.”_

Sibrand has taken to hiding on ships, to skulking the harbour with bow and fist always at the ready. He wears a hauberk with the black Teutonic cross emblazoned stark against blinding white as he grabs a monk by the collar and _smashes_ his armoured knee again and again into the old man’s face. When the man goes quiet, unconscious and practically half-dead from the abuse, Sibrand screams at the crowd that has gathered. He calls them one and all-

_“Traitor! Heretic! Liar! Begone from my sight!”_

_“See sense, brother! I am not the liar here, we have evidence-“_

_“Evidence?! These are but forgeries of the enemy, how_ dare _you spout such heresies against our master, against our order!”_

 _“Well, maybe_ you _are the one who is wrong!”_

Sibrand is on a ship (predictably) when Kadar manages to catch him alone. The man is shaking, his sword trembles in his grip and his eyes are wild and manic. He screams and slashes furiously, calling for help that would not come, then cursing the traitors who had abandoned him to his fate.

_“I was just following orders, and now I cannot turn back to choose a different path, how can I still have faith when I see corruption and greed, when I am still bound to die like a dog.”_

Kadar looks into the bloodshot, dark-lined eyes of the man beneath him, choking on his own blood, and he feels _pity_.

“It is never too late to choose a better path, you were trapped by nothing but yourself.”

-

Damascus is city gripped by hatred.

Everywhere around him Malik hears screams of injustice, sees teenagers sacking merchant stands and old men spewing vitriol. It is the careful work of a man named Jubair that has done this, reduced men and women of reason to naught more than brawling, rabid dogs.

 _“_ I _am the one who is wrong? Have you forgotten,_ little _brother, that it is the master who took us in at our weakest, the master who gave us a home, a purpose? Do mere words on paper hold such sway over you?”_

 _“Are_ your _eyes so clouded, brother, that you will not see what is plainly before you?!”_

_“You are the one who refuses to see! So quickly taken in by lies that dishonour the sacrifices of our brothers-“_

_“Altaïr did not die just so you could delude yourself!”_

He finds Jubair, the Enlightened One, in the library with his men, surrounded by stacks of knowledge, one of the world’s greatest convergence of learned minds immortalised in sacred art of the written word. There are copies of some of these books in the Masyaf library, and years ago Malik and Kadar and… would sit in a circle, backs to each other, books all about them, revelling…

Jubair wields a torch, as do his men, and he calls for them to-

_“Burn it.”_

_“What?! Brother, no!”_

_“The words on these pages are clearly poison, for you to turn against me so!”_

_“Stop it, Malik! Stop-“_

_“I am your superior, in age, skill, and rank!” (there is a whisper here, of power, of fear, a dying man still laughing at the fear of those beneath him) “And you_ will _obey me.”_

_“…No.”_

Malik and Jubair grapple after he takes down the men surrounding him, the scent of burning paper and flesh turning the air heavy and putrid, dancing flakes of destroyed wisdom sting his eyes and blur his vision. When he finally cuts Jubair down, his eyes are so clouded with tears, he can barely even see the man dying in his arms.

_"Is it not ancient scrolls that inspire the Crusaders? That fill Salahadin and his men with a sense of righteous fury? Their texts endanger others, bring death in their wake."_

Malik dips the feather in the blood, scrubbing the tears from his eyes with his dirty sleeves as he takes in the fires of the library around him.

“All knowledge should be available to all, to burn and erase knowledge to censure and push an agenda is abhorrent, and manipulative.”

And years ago Malik and Kadar and _Altaïr_ would sit in a circle, backs to each other, books all about them, revelling in the warm light of written wisdom.

-

Kadar is slow to return to Masyaf.

His mouth still tastes like his brother’s blood, when he’d bitten his hand to force him to drop the book ( _Robert’s journal, a damning account of Al Mua- of_ Rashid’s _collusions with the enemy, of his betrayals_ ), his tongue is still leaden with the things he’d screamed at his brother, his wrist still burns with the memory of Malik’s crushing grip and his cheek still stings from Malik’s slap.

He wants to see his brother, to run into his arms and cry like a child again, to curl up beside him in bed and let the soft steady sounds of Malik’s heartbeat lull him to sleep. He wants his brother to smile again, to make his dry jokes and drawling lectures and scathing criticisms of a man he so clearly admired ( _that he so clearly loved)_. He wants to run home and pretend that nothing that has happened this past year was real.

But he also wants to run away. The thought of returning to Masyaf, his home for almost as long as he can remember, should be a comforting one, but it fills him with nothing but dread and fear. Rashid should be to him a kindly mentor and grandfather, a font of wisdom and kindness, but all he thinks of is damning words on a letter written in a too-familiar hand saying _‘take them and do with them as you will’._

He looks at the slow passing of the clouds, of the slight shifting of the constellations in the sky, listens to the sounds of the night animals waking around him, the snuffing of his horse. He feels the coarse weight of his new Assassin whites upon his forehead, sees the dull silver gleam of the eagle-pommel blade at his side.

Time continues on, an endless, relentless forward march into the unknown, and nothing will ever again be as it once was.

-

Malik greets him at the gates, though it is not a greeting he expects.

He narrowly misses the point of the blade as it slashes straight down inches from the tip of his nose. He falls off his now-dead horse with a shout of alarm, struggling under its weight as he tries in vain to back away from his brother. The bright gleam on the steel of Malik’s blade very nearly distracts him from the other very unnatural, very _gold_ gleam in his brother’s eyes.

A sudden surge of fear and adrenaline gives him the strength he needs to kick himself free from under the decapitated horse, and he stumbles backwards, drawing his still-too-large eagle-pommel sword in shaking hands.

“Brother?”

Malik strikes again, knocking away Kadar’s sloppy block and opening a large but shallow gash in Kadar’s arm. It barely even hurts, but Kadar screams in horror all the same, more at the look in his brother’s ( _golden, wrong_ ) eyes than the wound on his arm.

“You… You are a traitor.”

Malik’s strikes are relentless, again and again he advances, his sword a bright blur of glinting steel. Kadar blocks as many as he can, but his clothes are soon riddled with bloody rips and tears. Against a warrior like Malik, against his own brother, Kadar is as defenceless as a new-born foal, as defenceless as he was at the beginning of this horrible year.

“Brother, please!”

“Traitor… Liar… You would… ruin us all.”

Kadar’s blade is knocked from his hand as he crashes onto his ass in the dirt. He backs away, hands and feet slipping on the sand, wide eyes watching as his brother’s advance stops at the threshold of the city.

“Leave. Leave and never show your face here again.”

There is a spare horse grazing just beyond the gates – a knackered old nag too deaf to have bolted from the sounds of fighting, and Kadar throws his battered body into the saddle and bolts away from the only home and only family he has left.

And when Kadar flees he swears he hears, “it’s not too late for _you_.”

-

Malik is in a home.

It is his, some part of him vaguely registers, but at the same time it isn’t. His house has never been this large, this airy, this bright. His house has not felt so homey, so cluttered yet clean, in a long time.

His feet carry him into the kitchen, and at the table he sees Kadar. He is older, taller, stronger; but his face is softer, rounder, sweeter. He wears the dark robes of a Dai, and he looks up at the sound of Malik’s approach, bright blue eyes twinkling with an uncorrupted innocence, smiling by way of greeting. Malik waves a greeting back, and Kadar returns to his work, running soft, untried fingers over the pages of his book, eyes bright with scholarly fervour.

The sounds of children’s shrieks beyond the window catches Malik’s attention, and he opens the door and steps into the warm sunlight, feels the fresh wind caress his hair, and cannot help the way he stares at the sight before him.

They are the children of the village of Masyaf, all gathered in his unusually spacious yard and playing. Laughing, running, screaming with delight, getting along with each other so easily with all their petty childish squabbles forgotten.

And in the middle of them all, dressed in a flowing robe so impossibly white it glows in the sun, is Altaïr. He smiles and laughs – a low warm chuckle that seems to sear an impossible heat all through Malik’s arms and into his fingertips – as he reaches down to hoist one of the smaller boys onto his hip. Malik remembers (and thinks how strange it was that he knew this, how _lucky_ he was to have known this) that Altaïr, for all that he was known as a cold man, love(d) children.

Altaïr’s smile is beautiful, sweet and warm, when he looks up at Malik, bouncing the giggling boy on his hip.

“You’re not real,” Malik says with heartbreak in his voice.

“I’m not,” the vision of Altaïr says with Altaïr’s voice, sounding surprised Malik could tell. Then with eyes glowing gold, reaches out a hand to caress Malik’s face, “but you could be happy here with me.”

Tears slip down Malik’s cheek as he leans forward to catch ‘Altaïr’s lips in a kiss.

“I couldn’t,” he says, voice breaking, arms wrapped bone-crushingly tight around ‘Altaïr’, “but by Allah I wish I could.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think 1191 is like Kadar's version of our 2016. Just a Bad Year all around.


End file.
